I saw, for it was not a dream-I saw a woman's face, pale, melancholy, and indistinct, gazing on mine with a most mournful look of the lineaments of that face, which were not quite unfamiliar to me, I could gather nothing precisely; for, as I have said, it was indistinct. But the eyes, so lustrous, yet so sorrowful,-these were distinctly seen, they were such as I knew, but could not then remember how or what my knowledge of them was. I started from my stillnessspoke, (to satisfy myself that I was not in sleep)-looked round, to see whether the light mellowly shining over me might not be that of the moon peering in through the lattice; but it was a dark and starless night. I turned again to the vision-for so it was-and even as I prepared myself to address it, it slowly vanished. As it retired, the light with which it was mantled grew less and less; but the clear light of those bright and brilliant eyes remained the latest to my view. As it retired, the clock pealed out the last chime of the midnight hour, and that clear and melancholy sound fell on my ear like a knell for a departed soul. All this had passed as in the compass of a minute.

"At our repast the next morning a shade was observed on my brow. I told of the vision of the night, and my tale was smiled at as an idle dream. My father, when the mirth had died, said, 'I, too, have a memory of that vision; it haunts our race, betokening death and despair. I, too, have seen it in by-gone years, and can well believe that it still follows our house. At the midnight hour, last night, I was awakened by a shriek the most piercingly shrill, and wildly horrible, human ear hath ever heard, and differing from any sound a human voice could utter!' Ye may well deem that laughter ceased at these words.

"A few words will suffice to complete my story; a few words must suffice, for my strength even now is fading away. The third day from this occurrence brought me letters from the home of my love,-her home no longer, for she was of the dead! On the very night, and at the very hour, as the twelfth chime of the noon of night struck, she died-died suddenly. It was-do ye doubt it?-her departing spirit, which, as it hovered between dust and immortality, thus gave its latest remembrance to him whom it had so loved in life; and sealed, even in the hour of death, its eternal affection by a long and last farewell.

"Since that hour I have had an eternity of suffering: toil, travel, and sorrow, have changed my features: my spirit is not as it had been the name through which I wooed remembrance has passed away. I would not, I could not, retain that name which she had hoped to share, which, if she shared, her virtues would make doubly honored. I have wandered, in a pilgrimage of pain, over the world, an alien from my kind. My familiar friends know not whether he, who was their pride, admiration, and boast, yet breathes the troubled air of human existence. Many bright forms-many lovely faces-many high minds have even since then, not disdained to link their hopes with the unknown and sorrowing stranger. But my heart hath heeded not their witchery; its hopes rested on one fair flower,-the storm has crushed and strewn its beauties in the dust; but, at least, no meaner blossom shall bloom on the spot where that grew, and withered. My course is run.'

REMARKS ON SHAKSPEARE'S "MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING."

This admirable comedy used to be frequently acted till of late years. Mr. Garrick's Benedick was one of his most celebrated characters; and Mrs. Jordan, we have understood, played Beatrice very delightfully. Hero is the principal figure in the piece, and leaves an indelible impression on the mind by her beauty, her tenderness, and the hard trial of her love. The passage in which Claudio first makes a confession of his affection towards her, conveys as pleasing an image of the entrance of love into a youthful bosom as can well be imagined.

In the scene at the altar, when Claudio, urged on by the villain Don John, brings the charge of incontinence against her, and, as it were, divorces her in the very marriage ceremony, her appeals to her own conscious innocence and honor are made with the most affecting simplicity.

The justification of Hero in the end, and her restoration to the confidence and arms of her lover, is brought about by one of those, temporary consignments to the grave, of which Shakspeare seems to have been fond. He has, perhaps, explained the theory of this predilection in the following lines

Friar. She dying, as it must be so maintain❜d,
Upon the instant that she was accus'd,
Shall be lamented, pity'd, and excus'd,
Of every hearer: for it so falls out,

That what we have we prize not to the worth,
While we enjoy it; but being lack'd and lost,
Why then we rack the value; then we find
The virtue, that possession would not show us
Whilst it was ours. So will it fare with Claudio:
When he shall hear she dy'd upon his words,
The idea of her love shall sweetly creep
Into his study of imagination;

And every lovely organ of her life

Shall come apparel'd in more precious habit,
More moving delicate, and full of life,
Into the eye and prospect of his soul,

Than when she liv'd indeed.

The principal comic characters in MUCH ADO ABOUT NoTHING, Benedick and Beatrice, are both essences in their kind. His character as a woman-hater is admirably supported, and his conversion to matrimony is no less happily effected by the pretended story of Beatrice's love for him. It is hard to say which of the two scenes is the best, that of the trick which is thus practised on Benedick, or that in which Beatrice is prevailed on to take pity on him, by overhearing her cousin and her maid declare (which they do on purpose,) that he is dying of love for her. There is something delightfully picturesque in the manner in which Beatrice is described as coming to hear the plot which is contrived against herself

For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs
Close by the ground, to hear our conference.

In consequence of what she hears (not a word of which is true,) she exclaims when these goodnatured informants are gone,

What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?

Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much?
Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride adieu !
No glory lives behind the back of such.